Box Score SAN RAFAEL, Calif. —  Kimi Nakamura scored 18 of her game-best 21 points in the second half on Tuesday night but the Dominican University of California women's basketball team couldn't recover from a sudden 3:20 scoreless spell in the second half when visiting Fresno Pacific University tallied 11 consecutive points to take the lead en route to a 75-66 victory.

Nakamura, who is fourth in the Pacific West Conference in three-point shooting, netted 5-of-10 shots for the Lady Penguins (5-13/4-6) beyond the arc against the Sunbirds (4-14/4-7), the league's top three-point defensive team.  But Dominican couldn't keep pace with FPU, which scored its fourth straight win.

Salonika Quewon-Owens added nine points, six in the second half, and seven rebounds for the Lady Penguins who shot 50 percent from the floor after intermission. Teammate Jasmine Cox contributed eight points and six rebounds off the bench and Sarah Nelson, who is third in the nation this week in NCAA Div. II in blocked shots, had three more rejections to go along with a game-high eight rebounds.

For the game, Dominican outshot the Sunbirds .429 to .385 and outrebounded them 42-40 but 10 second-half turnovers and one difficult stretch of basketball led to the Lady Penguins losing the lead and the contest. Dominican had a six-point lead, 43-37, with 12:59 to play following a put-back basket by freshman Jessy Marshall, who had seven points off the bench.

“I need to fix some things and make some adjustments to what we do in practice,” said Dominican Head Coach Brianna Chambers. “We need to be more disciplined down the stretch and stick to our philosophy to get back on track.”

Defensively, the Lady Penguins, using five different defenders, limited the Sunbirds' Keairra White, the PacWest's second leading scorer, to 13 points in 35 minutes. However, her teammate Breana Buczek picked up the slack with 20 points and eight rebounds, both team-highs.

In the first half, the Lady Penguins rallied from an early 6-2 deficit thanks to reserves Noelle Roldan and Jasmine Cox. They scored all of Dominican's points off the bench in a 13-2 run. Roldan gave the Lady Penguins the lead, 11-8, with a three-pointer then, after Cox took a charging foul on the defensive end, she scored on the offensive end with an assist from Roldan.

Lauren Hyatt then re-entered the game and proceeded to convert an offensive rebound into a basket then stole the ball on the inbounds and scored on a lay-up to boost the Lady Penguins' advantage to 17-10, their largest of the game.

The two teams battled back and forth until Dominican ended the first half with a 27-24 edge following two free throws by freshman Julia Brew and a buzzer-beating jumper by Nelson.

The Lady Penguins go to San Diego on Saturday, Feb. 2 for a PacWest match-up against Point Loma, one of the four new members in the 14-team conference this season. Game time is 2:00 p.m.